PS15
by Psychoticbunny
Summary: Imagine the perfect school. The teachers are pleasant, the classes never boring, just the most perfect place in the world. Now hurry up and erase that image from your mind. This is PS15 and there's no mercy for the weak-hearted. SoraxRiku
1. Chapter 1

Birds twittered a taunting tune from outside the window as an old man dressed in gray droned on about logic with such monotony the words blurred together and the speech began to form an irritating buzz. Sora could feel his brain melt and dribble out of his ears. Soon all sense of time and place was forgotten. Was it Tuesday or Wednesday? Fourth period or ninth? Was he still in school or walking home? He was too emotionally numb from the lecture to coordinate his thoughts.

Two seats ahead, a kid sat with a zoned out look on his face, slowly inserting an index finger up his right nostril. The bored child watched that with mild interest as all sorts of nasty things were deposited into the nose-picker's mouth.

It was also incredibly hot, as it was on most days on Destiny Islands. And there was obviously no air conditioning in the cheap public school Sora was accepted into after failing all of his tests to the private high schools. All of his middle school friends had ditched him for education that didn't make time go backwards.

Kairi and Riku were together at Norton Academy, the elite school. It had classes in a multitude of areas: philosophy, ballet, basketball, calculus, painting, you name it. Of course, due to it's high level courses, the test to get in was the most torturous, mind-blowing, soul-eating test out of all of the acceptance exams. Sora had given up after he once again forgot what his last name was and became too stressed out to continue.

Wakka and Tidus attended Blitzball High, which, just as the name alludes to it, had anything and everything to do with blitzball. They claimed all the classes would relate back to blitzball. Math, for how to calculate speeds and distances depending on certain angles. Social studies, for how the game originated and who were some legendary players. All in all, it was a pretty cool school. Plus, all the female teachers walked around in bikini tops and short shorts, which made Sora's failure at the entrance exam all the more devastating. He had given up before he even got the chance to walk to the field, scared off by one student who walked off covered in blood and tears. "This is pretty rare," the teacher assisting him reasoned, attempting to comfort the anxious boy, but Sora was very squeamish and did not like the look of the blitzball-shaped bruises on the wounded student.

Even Selphie was accepted into North Coast. The school was originally named after some man who built some sort of bridge, but people had long since forgotten about him and no one at the school could tell you his name, if you had the motivation to ask around. Sora might have been able to get in to that school, but by the time the entrance exams rolled around, he was too heartbroken from his previous failures to walk right into another one.

PS15 was the school Sora had managed to fall into. It stood for Public School 15. Their school colors were no where to be found. Everything was gray. PS1 to PS14 were all elementary and middle schools. PS15 was the only high school in the PS series because usually everyone had graduated into successful schools. But not Sora.

The people here are so stupid, he would complain to himself, even though he scored no higher than the girl who brought her pillow to class, whining about how the hard desk disturbed her dreams. Because that was just how it was at PS15. Everyone who actually bothered showing up after homeroom eventually got into the habit of skipping lunch. That period turned into a competition of who could step on the most cockroaches, but Sora refused to participate, considering the prize was smooshed bug stuck on your shoe for the rest of the day. Because that was just how it was at PS15. No one smiled anymore either. Even in the positivity club after school everyone seemed pessimistic. The mural club painted the walls different shades of grays, waiting until they dried, and then painting them over with the first shade. Earth keepers littered, the members of the writing club were illiterate, and everyone played checkers in chess club. Because that was just how it was at PS15. Oh, memories.

The worst part was that Sora could never weasel himself inside his friends' busy schedules. And whenever his constant pestering rewarded him with a group trip to the beach, no one payed any attention to him. They all talked about their wonderful classes and teachers and new friends and new experiences until their tongues felt sore. Riku had some science teacher he really liked? Wakka liked some chick named Lucy? Selphie had managed to form a jump roping club? Then they'd all get some sea-salt ice cream, despite Sora's endeavor to get them to notice he preferred vanilla, sea-salt tasted like sand to him, and watch the sunset, hushing Sora when _he_ spoke, desperate for a good conversation.

It was hard to make friends at PS15. No one looked particularly friendly. Sora mostly stuck to the older kids, and there were _old _kids. Mainly Cloud and Leon, who looked well into their thirties to the boy, although they insisted their years went no further than twenty. Aerith could be excused, seeing as she was the school nurse. She was Sora's favorite person at the school, kind, sweet, and gentle, reminding him of his kindergarten teacher. Yuffie was the only student Sora had taken too. She was energetic and fun, similar to his own personality, and they could have a blast together. She liked sports and board games and art and music and anything at all as long as she was doing _something. _

There were other kids as well, but none of them were as entertaining. There was always that girl with the pillow—shed declare she had designed the thing herself—and that guy with the long red hair who wasn't allowed near matches, and that emo kid who didn't have right haircut, but still looked mopey all the time and dressed in black.

Sora had only spent three months in the hellhole and he already felt like suicide was the best option. He, himself was forced to watch his spirit drain out of his body. Each day he looked in the mirror, his eyes were a little bit duller, his face a little bit more sullen, his shoulders slumped a little bit more forwards than the previous day. The school had, with little to no effort, ripped out his heart and happiness, while now all Sora had to do was wait until the day his body crumbled into dust. Maybe I'll become part of the sand, he would think to himself as he stared at the boy in the mirror, and then people other than my old friends will get the chance to walk all over me. The boy in the mirror stared back with a blank look, absolutely emotionless. He used to smile and giggle, Sora remembered, but that seemed like a really long time ago.

It was two weeks ago when he found out about the worst part. Riku and Kairi were going out. Tidus had the decency to call the boy once the information was revealed to everyone but Sora. Sora had a long-time crush on Kairi. He'd write love letters to her and stick them under his bed for the day he'd finally be able to give her one. They dated as far back as the first grade, where half the words were spelled incorrectly and the the other half were illegible. Sora really wasn't as stupid as his classmates in PS15 were though, and knew the day would come after watching the two dance around each other for years. Naturally, he was expecting his reaction to be a bit less emotional than what it might have been if he didn't face the truth. He ended up surprising himself with his lack of feelings.

"Oh," he had replied to the supposedly astonishing attestation. And that was how he truly felt. It was at that point he realized how disconnected he was from his friends. It didn't even feel like his crush was being taken away from him by his best friend, it felt like he had been flipping channels on the TV and found a couple making out in some random movie. Something wasn't right with involving himself in those people's lives. It was as if his friends were the program and he was the observer.

His heart felt empty after that revelation, so he sulked around at the chess club that day. They had moved pass checkers, it turned out, and had decided Connect Four was more interesting. The boy ended up spacing off too much and lost four out of five games, that last of which he played against himself.

"Life sucks!" he snapped at emo-boy, who solemnly nodded in agreement.

That night he punched his mirror into a million glass shards, upset with the boy inside it. Why'd he have to stop laughing? If he had just been happier a bit longer, then maybe, _maybe_, life wouldn't be this bad.

---

Hey guys. This is my first KH fic in a while. I know Sora's being emo, but give him some time and he'll get better. And if you do want him to get better you'll have to review. I want at least one. There will be SoraxRiku, but that obviously isn't possible right now, so you'll have to bear with them for the moment.

For those of you who are not aware of my reviewing system (for it is fairly new and only applies to one other fanfic), I will state it here and now, so that we may be on a lovely level of understanding. I do like reading fanfiction, but I don't like searching for it. If you review my fanfic, just leave me the title of your own fanfiction that you'd like me to read and I will definitely review at least one. However, I don't read fanfiction about an anime or game I don't know of. I do know:

Naruto

Kingdom Hearts (but I think you've noticed)

Full Metal Alchemist

Radiata Stories

Okami

Gravitation

Yu Yu Hakusho

Code Geass

Ergo Proxy

and many more... But those are a bunch of popular anime, aside from Ergo Proxy. Please, please, please no Final Fantasy though. I don't get that series at all and I'm not particularly fond of the characters, unless they are mentioned once in a while for minor side parts. I hope this will motivate you to share your views.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day Sora apologized to emo-boy for lashing out on him the day before. He really did feel bad about it and he assured the guy (whose name turned out to be Roxas) he was not usually that aggressive. Roxas said he didn't mind at all and that life really was a spiraling black bit of doom and despair. Once you got sucked in, despite your constant struggle, there was no way out, the exit blocked by fear and personal weaknesses. There were a couple of dark poems following that and Sora got the feeling this speech wasn't made up off the top of Roxas' head.

That was peculiar, Sora thought as Roxas abruptly departed after the discovery of Sora's watch reading three o'clock. Sora hadn't been able to notify him that his watch was actually two hours fast, but he was honestly pretty glad he had left.

He should join the poetry club, Sora joked to himself, because everyone knew that the poetry club had turned into skateboarding club quite some time ago, although no one knew how the change came about or why their school had a poetry club in the first place.

Sora was just about done with convincing himself of never speaking with Roxas again until he noticed a small paper the boy had left behind during the confusion of the dash to his appointment. It's probably just scrap paper, Sora thought, picking it up and turning it over.

It wasn't scrap paper (or else Roxas was a _really _good artist). It was a picture of four kids. One was blond and grinning wickedly, looking like the cat that ate the canary. His hair was styled strangely; he had spikes, but they didn't have enough form to stay up by themselves and ended up curling down, ruining the effect. Another was a chubby boy who seemed good-natured and friendly from his warm smile. His eyes twinkled at the camera. It was unusual to capture such a natural smile on film. The third was a girl this time. She had two braids of rich brown hair and was holding up a peace sign in the photograph. The last was Roxas, but he was wearing a white jacket and smiling bigger than Sora ever could. They were standing in some sort of playground, seeing as there was a jungle gym in the background, but Sora couldn't recognize the location.

Well, that threw his plans out the window. It wouldn't be very fair to Roxas if it ended up that the picture was extremely important to him (and from the worn look of the paper, it seemed Roxas had handled it many times). So now another obligation was added onto his agenda.

As for the first obligation, the night before, his mom had been speaking to him about how he never had anyone over anymore. Even Riku, who used to come every day, rain or shine, homework or no homework. Sora rejected that. He lied and persistently vowed Kairi stopped by for a visit during the time his mother had gone out on Sunday, but ended up saying Saturday by accident.

"Do you swear on the Bible?" his mother had retaliated his claims with.

"Yes, Mom, I swear on the Bible," he mumbled.

"Really, do you? Are you sure?" she interrogated.

"Yes, Mom, I swear on the Bible," he repeated with more confidence behind his voice.

He received a slap in return for that and a shriek of, "Don't you dare use the Bible as some frivolous object! I can't believe you'd lie! You're going to church this Sunday no matter what, you hear me? No more skipping! God will not tolerate this behavior and neither will I!"

Despite being an immoral person herself, Sora's mother was surprisingly pious. Sora knew from his mom's previous antics that as long as he solved the original matter, God would apparently have mercy and he'd be back on his way to heaven. (Besides, wasn't the road to hell paved with good intentions?) Which meant as long as he had someone familiar come over for a bit, he could burn the Bible that his mom forced him to keep in his nightstand. Like he was really going to one day get up and read the Bible. Ha!

Of course, even if Sora wasn't able to rope someone into rescuing him from boredom, his mom had a poor memory and was so busy, matters with her son were rarely taken care of. Worse case scenario and Sora did have to attend sermons on Sunday, he would at least get hot chocolate afterwards. (How was that religious? He didn't know and didn't care because that was some _really _good hot chocolate.) All in all, church wasn't terrible, but it wasn't Sora's most favorite thing in the world.

Bringing it back the initial matter at hand, the first item on his agenda was finding someone who could waste some time at his house. Currently, his watch read three thirty, which meant it was actually one thirty, which meant he had another hour until school was over, which meant he was leaving early today.

No one questioned him as he rose in the middle of a test half the people in the room were folding into paper airplanes. The other half were sleeping for the most part, but there was that pyro-dude in the corner who was rolling his test paper around some greenish-brown leaves. Pillow-lass was dreaming away and snorted a series of oddly disturbing snores right before Sora managed to escape.

He wasn't sure what exactly he'd do at Norton Academy for an hour, so Sora opted for walking at a remarkably slow pace, hoping to trim off at least three-fourths of the wait with the journey. Destiny Islands was uncommonly quiet, he realized during his stroll, when most of the teenagers were at school. This was probably because he had chosen to cross the island by walking along the beach. The sands were usually occupied by beach bunnies and blitzball players, but it seemed school got between them and the waves.

I should come out here more often, he thought. Aside from some squawking seagulls and the rumble of the waves, the beach was absolutely silent. The sand made a scrunching sound beneath his feet. He took off his shoes and socks towards the end of his traipse, enjoying the feeling of the sand between his toes. He then rolled up his pant legs and stood in the water for a while, breathing in the scent of the sea.

In the distance, a black dot could be made out. The island we all used to play at, Sora recognized. And suddenly, he felt very old, looking out at that island, so he walked out of the water and squished his sandy feet into his socks, then inserting his feet into his shoes and strutting away swiftly. He rolled his pant legs back down as well and they stuck to his legs, causing them to itch. Occasionally, he'd lift up his foot to brush against his leg, trying to scrape the unwanted particles off his skin.

I'll soak my feet once I get home, he told himself.

Sora ended up exceeding his expectations, killing fifty minutes with his detour to the beach. Soon, the view of a vast building came into his line of vision. Norton Academy was much bigger than PS15 and much more extravagant to boot. There was a silver gate lining the grounds, containing rows of trees and bushes, speckled with pinks, oranges, reds, and yellows, courtesy of the flowers and a winding brick path that led up to the building itself. The campus was tended to with much care, not a single leaf out of place. Some benches lined the path, and a teacher sat on one, a cigarette in one hand and a green pen in the other, some papers below her, which Sora assumed were tests or homework.

No one but the students or employees were let inside the actual building, so Sora could only imagine it from Riku's last description (supplied as Sora once again had to sit through the repulsive taste of sea-salt ice cream, eventually feeding it to some cat once Riku left. The next day there was a dead cat lying on Sora's front porch, which he could only take as a bad omen. The artificial flavoring in that ice cream made him cringe.).

Nevertheless, the exterior of the building was rumored to be breathtaking. It had a mid-evil style, apparently placed in an old castle in the region. Some new parts had been added on, for safety and convenience, but for the most part, the lessons were taught in the original rooms, so the castle basically looked like it did for the past couple of centuries. The brick was reddish in color with black tiles for the roof. The words "Norton Academy" were no where to be seen, unlike Sora's own school, which had giant gray letters and numbers on the front of the building, making it look even more dumpy.

Students emerged from the buildings shortly, chattering softly to one another. As more and more classes were let out, the noise grew louder and louder. The gates were finally opened and Sora was almost run over by the stampede of people. He looked around for a head of silver hair. How many people could have silver hair?

A lot of people, was soon revealed to Sora as he mistook another white-haired man for his friend. Sora began to feel very, very stupid. Not only because he could not recognize his friend, but also for being rejected from out of the plethora of students accepted. At least _one _of them had to be dumber than he!

"Sora? What are you doing here?"

Sora twisted his head back and forth to track the source of the voice. He finally located Kairi in the middle of a group of girls. They were all dressed in the customary school uniform: a white collared shirt with plaid skirts in blue. Kairi herself was wearing navy socks that rested just below her knees and white sneakers. It had been a while since he saw her because she was occupied for the last couple of group meetings due to a long-term project. Hoping the essay or whatever she had decided to organize her information in was complete, Sora bounded over to her and swept her into a hug, lifting her feet off the ground for a couple of seconds. He had finally become taller than Kairi and took advantage of the height difference as many times as possible, no matter how small it was.

She squealed a bit at the sudden elevation and her friends all giggled. Sora may have grown taller, but Kairi had grown prettier, in his mind. She grew her hair out over the summer so that it came down to her shoulders, spreading out over her delicate frame. Her eyes were big and round, giving her an innocent look, almost fragile. Her nose was cute, her lips plump, her skin pale and flawless, and overall she was perfect.

"Does Riku mind?" one of her friends butted in. So Tidus wasn't lying, Sora thought bitterly.

"No, no. He's just a childhood friend," Kairi defended. At this point, Sora was forced to let go of the beautiful girl, although it pained his heart now that he could really see how wonderful Kairi was.

"Are you sure? You never mentioned any childhood friends. And neither did Riku!" the friend, a brunette, continued to tease.

"Oh, shut up! He doesn't matter, okay? He's nothing to me. Why don't you guys go ahead without me. I'll catch up later." She waved them away with a dainty hand. Her fingernails had been coated with a light pink and trimmed neatly at the ends. Sora focused his attention on Kairi's hand instead of the blatant insult to his role in her life. He was on the brink of kissing the hand he was staring at, but he scolded himself for losing his composure and chose to wrap an arm around her shoulder for consolidation.

"Hey Kairi, are you free today?" Sora voiced.

"Huh? Today? Sorry, my friends and I were gonna go bowling, so I can't just quit on them." She punctuated with an apologetic smile and a pat on Sora's back before freeing herself from his clutch. "But hey, I'll see you around, yeah?" With that she scampered off.

Sora had to jog to catch up to her. Unfortunately, Kairi had become a much faster runner during the absence of races between she, Riku, and the boy now struggling to go at half the speed that the person he was in pursuit of was zooming at. There were several instances where he thought he had lost her as she rounded sharp turns or began sprinting even faster.

"Wait up,"—huff, huff—"I... I just... I just need a favor!" There was another break reserved for panting. PS15 had no gym program and Sora had been slacking off. This isn't working, he thought. He stopped and called out to Kairi, who he hoped could hear from such a distance.

"My house is on the way to the bowling alley! It'll just take two seconds!" he reasoned.

The figure halted and began to jog back towards the spot where Sora hung his head downwards, hands on his knees, sweat dripping from his forehead.

"What do you need?" she asked, not a sign of exhaustion in her tone.

"Come over to... to... my house... mom... church..." Sora took a deep breath and started anew. "My mom thinks I'm antisocial and stuff 'cause you guys never come over anymore. She's making me go to church if I don't invite anyone over. You just need to step inside for a second and then she'll be satisfied. Can you? Please?"

"Sure thing."

The two old friends continued at a much slower pace.

"So... I hear you and Riku are, uh, dating," Sora began tentatively.

"Oh? Whoops! We forgot to tell you! How'd you find that out?" Sora might have been offended if Kairi wasn't smiling as charmingly as she was.

"Oh, you know, Tidus with the phone and the gossip and the... yeah..." he murmured. Maybe it would have been better to have stuck around and waited for Riku, he pondered while he attempted to access the part of his brain that pieced together full sentences. How to make a peanut butter sandwich, how to play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on the mandolin...

"Oh," she countered. How to create a model airplane out of toothpicks, how to make a card tower...

"Oh," he agreed. How to brush his teeth, how to clear his throat in a way that made him sound like he was about to say something important...

"Things have changed," Kairi mentioned.

"Yeah..." Sora had already found how to reply with monosyllabic words, so he decided to stick to what he knew. After the wave of relief that came with that bit of knowledge, it took him a while to process the meaning behind the sentence he'd just automatically acquiesced with. He then felt nothing but guilt, remembering the promise he had once made with Kairi. Don't ever change, she had chided. What was he supposed to do? Drink so much coffee he'd stay small enough to wear the same clothes for the rest of his life? She had changed more than he did anyway. Her personality had shifted as well, as his had stayed the same for the most part, he argued.

"Do you remember that promise we made to each other a long time ago?" Kairi inquired with the hint of a smile tugging at her lips, closing her eyes slightly as she reminisced.

"Mm?" What about it?

"That was stupid of me, wasn't it? Thinking that we'd never change. That wouldn't do us any good, being so rigid and set in our childish behavior. I dunno... I always look back at that moment and feel terrible about it, trying to hold you back with me. I dunno... I'm glad things changed, aren't you?"

"Ecstatic," Sora grumbled.

"What?" she replied. He mentally slapped himself, emphasizing the importance of sticking to the most simplistic speech possible. Make it up to her, quickly! he shouted at himself.

"Well, lately... I mean, it feels like you've all been ignoring me." That wasn't making it up to her, he pointed out to himself. Sora felt his eye twitch.

Kairi began to fumble over her words and babble. "Not _ignoring _you, just... well, it's partially because... if you would only... do you think... well, in retrospect and, uh... when you think of our schools and the matter of, well... look, what I'm trying to say is... uh... well, maybe we'd be more willing to hang out with you if you would only value your own education a bit more," she concluded weakly.

"What do you mean by that?" Sora interrogated, becoming cross.

"I mean, look at your school. That's not where you go to become a rocket scientist. That's where you go if you're planning on working in a deli or in some illegal sweatshop. It's just, well, it's unnerving is all. Do you even want to go to college?"

Sora shook his head in disbelief. "Are you kidding me?"

She suddenly looked ashamed. "Just forget it. That wasn't right of me." She sped up a bit so Sora could only view the back of her head.

"Hold on! You can't just take something like that back!" He grabbed her arm and forced her body to face him.

"Shut up, Sora. Let it go." Head turned away, she shook her arm around, trying to free herself from his grasp. With each struggle, he tightened his grip, becoming even angrier.

"Let it go? How am I supposed to let something like that go?" He twisted her arm even farther and she began to scream. It was now bent in an odd way that made her elbow stick out in an awkward direction. Blood trickled down her forearm as Sora's fingernails dug into her flesh.

"Stop it, Sora! Let go! You're hurting me! What's wrong with you?" Tears bubbled up in her eyes and streaked down her face. She finally yanked her arm away and gingerly touched her fingers to it. "What's wrong with you?" she reiterated, livid.

She glared at him through blurred vision, the exclamation hanging over the two, suffocating them.

Sora's eyes widened with remorse as he spotted the red liquid. Had he really just done that?

"Oh god, Kairi, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. Please, oh god, I'm so sorry. I never meant to, please believe me," he begged.

"I have to go. My friends are waiting," she uttered in an undertone.

"No wait, Kairi, I'm so sorry. I have no idea what got into me," Sora cried. "Just hold on, just wait."

It was too late though, and she was already jogging off.

"Wait, Kairi, wait," he said even though she had disappeared from his sight. He examined his hand, as if the reasoning behind his behavior would be written there.

Back at chess club, where Sora found himself thirty minutes later, they had gone back to checkers. He stuck around for a couple of minutes to see if Roxas would show up and he could return the picture, but the mock-emo wasn't present. There was no reason to stick around much longer. Sora stunk at Connect Four, but at checkers he was even worse. He wondered how badly he'd do if they actually played chess for once.

"What's wrong with me?" he whispered to himself.

"You don't shut up!" pillow-girl hissed.

Sora let out a heavy sigh.

---

Wow! What amazing feedback! I actually thought I was still dreaming when I woke up and checked my reviews. Thanks so, so much! You guys are great! Twenty percent of the people who viewed this reviewed. I'm still in a daze from it.

I was actually planning on doing this in the first chapter, but I forgot. I remember now though. I was going to say that whoever guessed who emo-boy, pillow-girl, and pyro-dude are would get a cookie, but now everyone knows emo-boy is Roxas. So how about this. A cookie for anyone who can guess who pillow-girl is (because pyro-dude is kind of obvious).


	3. Chapter 3

The next time Sora encountered Roxas was during homeroom the next day. He looked pissed off, probably because of the watch incident. The hate in his eyes increased as Sora plopped himself in the seat to the left of him. For a moment the anger increased to the point where the boy feared his new acquaintance might go right out and sock him in the face (there would be no one willing to stop the brawl anyway), but instead Roxas huffed out a sigh and melted his anger into sadness.

"Hey, Sora," he breathed with utter anguish.

"Hey. Sorry about yesterday," Sora mumbled with a hint of remorse. "Really, _really _sorry," he added quickly as Roxas slammed his head into the desk in front of him and began to shake.

"No, it's not you. I don't really care about that. I just lost something _really _important," he confessed. His eyes filled with tears, which caused Sora to freak out momentarily until his brain digested the sentence.

"Oh!" Sora exclaimed, reaching into his pocket. "You mean this picture? Yeah, you must have dropped it." The paper had gotten a bit more crumpled in his pocket and there was now a large fingerprint covering the blond guy's face, but Roxas' face lit up in an instance nevertheless. He snatched it out of Sora's hands and rubbed it against his cheek.

"Hayner, Pence, Olette!"

Sora didn't want to be considered rude if he ended up staring at the uncharacteristic show of affection, so in order to draw attention off the picture he initiated a shift of topics.

"You know that blond girl with the pillow?" he started.

Success! The picture made it's way back home into the depths of Roxas's pocket.

"Yeah, what about her?" he replied, glancing in her direction.

"Uh..." Unfortunately, Sora had not thought his plan through, and didn't really have any comments on her. "She seems... gentle?"

The girl made a face in her sleep, as if she had picked up on Sora's speech. The weird thing about her, aside from her pillow, Sora noticed, was that she wore the same dress every single day. She probably stinks! he realized with more horror than necessary. Although he'd never attempted sniffing his classmates, as his eyes swept around the room, he discovered a lot of people who probably stunk. Was anyone besides him and Roxas aware of the device called a shower? In fact, the only reason he hadn't noticed the stench for so long was because he had been immersed in it. Which probably meant he stunk as well, he decided, ashamed of his hypocrisy.

"Really?" A look of disbelief crossed his companion's face. But then as he looked over at the dozing blond, his expression softened into a lovesick grin. "You know, everyone has at least one person they like, and at least one person who likes them."

"Huh?" Sora followed the gaze in order to make some sense out of Roxas' infatuation. Certainly her dainty figure would point towards innocence and grace, even her voice was soft and soothing, in retrospect. Her hair also appeared to have a silky texture and the way her slim fingers grasped the pillow like a lifeline made her look almost timid. "How do you know that?" After going over her harsh personality once more, Sora decided that Kairi was definitely much better. But then again, Kairi was pretty mad at him, he remembered, letting his head droop.

"Hm, just intuition. I mean, you have to appeal to _someone _out there, and with all the people in the world, there must be one person out there you fall for, right?" The blond had awoken to snap at the two girls behind her who were noisily chatting about something the two boys couldn't interpret from across the room. The girls ignored her interruption and continued on. Angrily, the blond pulled out an embroidery kit from the inside of her pillow and began threading a needle with light blue string. "Oh, it looks like she's gonna do another one..."

Sora thought over the first statement as he replied with, "Another one of what?" So he liked Kairi, obviously, and Kairi liked Riku. Kairi's life followed Roxas' rule. And if Riku was Kairi's crush, would it still count if the person he was attracted to was Kairi? For the sake of Roxas' argument, he decided to let that matter slide and count it as more evidence. And finally, Sora liked Kairi, so who liked him?

"Another decorated pillow. I've been with her since elementary school. She always embroiders pictures onto her pillows. They're usually portraits, but sometimes she'll do other pictures like landscapes or a scene of a bunch of people interacting with each other. I have one that she did of me in my room. It's pretty cool," Roxas answered while keeping his eyes trained on the hand that was holding the needle. Whatever or whoever the picture depicted, she seemed quite engrossed in it. The two students that had prevented her from napping earlier now stared at her artwork in wonder, increasing Sora's curiosity of the subject matter.

"Then who likes me?" Sora voiced somewhat unintentionally.

"You'd be surprised..." Roxas muttered.

The two waited in silence until Sora figured that if Roxas was going to offer the chance of approaching the girl and viewing her pillow, he would've done so already. There was a sense of depression looming over Sora's head and he was steadily loosing interest in his new friend, who wasn't as emotionless as he had expected. In fact, he was much too normal, Sora concluded, for a such a school. He began to grow annoyed at Roxas' ordinary behavior. In a huff, the boy rushed out of the room and sped straight back home. Roxas didn't try to hold him back. It wasn't worth attending school that day, he insisted to himself.

As soon as he reached home, he kicked off his shoes and threw his backpack next to the entryway. After a short hall, the house led to the living room, which was also connected with the kitchen. The room would have looked nicely decorated, had there not been plastic wrap covering every inch of the expensive furniture. The only item spared from plastic doom was the flat screen television located across from a heavily protected couch. Sora leaped on the couch and reached for the remote, which was wedged between two cushions, forcing him to wrestle it free.

Sora flipped through channels for a few minutes with nothing really catching his attention, even though the morning cartoons usually did it for him. With a sigh of defeat, he pressed the power button and stared at the black screen with more fascination than he had for any of the excuses some channels labeled television shows. Being a positive guy by nature, Sora reminded himself of his mother's rant about how when she grew up there were only nine channels, but he couldn't bring himself to appreciate the extra eight hundred that were available. After all, there were probably only nine channels he could watch without paying an extra fee anyway. The plastic moved beneath him as he shifted positions a couple of times, none of them succeeding in making him more comfortable due to the crinkly surface he was lying on.

With an exasperated groan, Sora willed himself to rise from the couch and drag his body all the way to the staircase, but then collapsed once more at the bottom of the stairwell. He stared at the fruit-patterned carpet, tracing the outline of some strawberries to his left. The boy pursed his lips together, beginning to regret coming home to the empty house. Even listening to his mom prattle on about the religious aspects of life, double-checking that she had prayed enough to essentially cancel out her sins and ensure a safe trip to Heaven was better than feeling like a loser with no friends. Then again, as Sora thought over his conversation with Kairi, feeling like he had no friends should have been expected.

Sora climbed the stairs on his hands and knees and then dragged his legs across the hallway upstairs to get to his room, which was located at the end of the passageway. By the time he reached his door, blue with a keep out sign containing a crudely drawn picture of some guy covered in blood, angry red marks stained his knees. Trickles of blood slid down his legs from the stinging wounds, but Sora left them alone and entered his room, immediately starting up his computer.

There was an obnoxious whirring sound, but then the monitor lit up with a blue screen. After a moment, a box requiring a name and a password appeared. The name was automatically filled in so Sora hastily typed in "password" in the password box, having to resubmit the information three times due to inaccuracy in typing. The computer then took another minute to load all applications. As soon as it seemed that Sora would be able to actually use the machine, an urgent anti-virus scan popped up. Despite several attempts to cancel it, the computer began to run the check, during which Sora took out some cards and lost at Solitaire nineteen times. A window popped up at the end, indicating one corrupted file. Sora clicked on the option to view which file it was, but all that appeared was H71124556. Sora knew very little about computers, and was much too fed up to get into anything technical, so he simply chose to delete the file, assuming that if it was anything _really _important, he would've noticed it malfunctioning before the virus check had to root it out.

At this point, the boy was more than ready to get around to fooling around on the Internet, his original purpose. However, the computer seemed determined to deny him of this privilege and attacked him with another window.

Are you sure you want to delete this file?

That made Sora's mouse hover over the "yes" button without clicking as he realized he wasn't _entirely _sure he wanted to delete that file. His eyes flitted back and forth from the "yes" button to the "no" button until he gave up and quit all of his windows, hoping any important files were backed up.

He then proceeded to open up a new window in Firefox and navigated himself to a website that provided free shooting games. He played one version for a couple of minutes, soon growing tired of it, and then shifted his attention to the advertisements placed at the top and sides of the page.

CONGRATULATIONS!!! YOU ARE THE FIVE HUNDREDTH VIEWER OF THIS PAGE, NO JOKE!!! CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE!!!

The message was placed at the very top of the page and blinked on and off rapidly. After a few seconds of staring at it, Sora felt his eyes water, so he reverted his attention to another to the left of his game.

Do you think Joe Clifton will make a good governor? Answer to receive a free T-shirt.

Sora scoffed. Clifton had already lost the election two month ago. It was the advertisement to the right that caught Sora's eye.

Find out who's crushing on you!

The background was magenta, accompanied by an excessive amount of sparkles with a silhouette of a man and a woman kissing at the bottom. The words themselves were bubble letters and the bottom of the exclamation point was dotted with a little heart. Sora felt his hand move the mouse over to that side of the page and click on it, opening up a new tab with a more detailed explanation of how the site worked.

Someone has a crush on you!

To find out who has a crush on you just enter your name, email address, and phone number. In a week, you will receive an email and a text message with that person's name!

Below that were boxes where someone could fill out the necessary information, ending with a sparkly pink "submit" button, also written in bubble letters. Sora was tempted to give into the scam, but shook his head as he realized the stupidity of it all and quickly changed the page back to Google.

Sora leaned back in his chair, contemplating what to search. With a sudden burst of inspiration, he typed in "online psychic" and watched as 710,000 results were matched. He picked one random site on the first page and impatiently skimmed through the instructions.

1. Type your question in the box.

2. Click "Submit."  
3. Scroll down to find your answer.

Sora's laid his fingers upon the keyboard and tentatively typed in his question.

Does someone have a crush on me?

There was a brief pause as the computer let out a sound that reminded Sora of the bells on the front desk of hotels that you were supposed to ring if you needed service. Then a new page appeared and Sora scrolled down the page to find the answer.

Yes!

He felt his heart begin to race with excitement, his breath coming in short gasps. In his mind, a red-haired beauty appeared, her face graced with a gentle smile, an almost mischievous feeling lying underneath. She giggled coyly and batted her eyes in a loving manner, turning her head to the side out of embarrassment, but then overcoming the feeling and looking at Sora dead on. The boy hurriedly typed the next question.

Do I know her?

Bing!

No.

He felt his heart plummet. That didn't make any sense at all.

How does she like me if I don't know her?

Bing!

Maybe, if you try.

The shame of actually believing in such an obvious trick made Sora feel like clawing his eyes out.

Is this a scam?

Bing!

Yes!

Do you believe that the government has the right to listen into our phone calls and search through our computers without our consent?

Bing!

No.

If I shove a ballpoint pen up my nose, can I use it to pull my brain out through my nostril?

Bing!

Maybe, if you try!

Sora didn't know if he was more disappointed in the dishonesty or that the site made it so ridiculously easy to figure out that the answers were in a set pattern.

He typed in facebook in the URL box and checked his messages. There were some random people from his school who had sent him friend requests and there was even one from a suspicious Wendy Winchcombe who claimed to be a friend from kindergarten. His cousin from Germany had sent him another invitation to some group which was all in German. He chose to ignore that and then sent out his daily friend request to Johnny Depp, who had been ignoring his messages for all of the three months since the time Sora first discovered that his favorite actor had a facebook.

The boy then quit Firefox, opting to close all tabs rather than preserve the ones already opened for the next time he used the application.

Although he doubted anyone would be on, Sora logged onto AIM and found that Riku and Tidus had wriggled out of school for the day. He almost invited them to a chat room, but then referred back to his discussion with Kairi from the day before and slumped back in his chair.

After a couple of minutes, Sora pushed his body up to see if anything on his computer screen had changed. To his surprise, Tidus had sent him an invitation to a chat room with between him and Riku. Sora reluctantly accepted.

_xxXxxKingdomOfLightxxXxx has joined_

x2231x73219xxx83571: Sup man how r u?

xxXxxKingdomOfLightxxXxx: I'm okay, u?

x2231x73219xxx83571: yah, i'm fine!

x2231x73219xxx83571: Ddue, u wld nt bleive wut happned 2 wkka yestrday!

x2231x73219xxx83571: we wree wlking dwn teh hall in schol n the grl he lieks lulu is hr naem was starign at him & i told hmi to say hi so he did & she was blshuing & thne wakka was blushign & i thnk she lieks him, rite?

OptomisticPessimism3348: No one can understand you when you type like that.

OptomisticPessimism3348: And hi Sora.

xxXxxKingdomOfLightxxXxx: Hey Riku, u skipping?

OptomisticPessimism3348: No, I'm sick.

xxXxxKingdomOfLightxxXxx: Oh, that sucks.

OptomisticPessimism3348: Whatever.

x2231x73219xxx83571: i'm skpping how bout u?

Sora typed in the reply of "you bet" but Kairi's voice rang through his head. _Maybe we'd be more willing to hang out with you if you would only value your own education a bit more._ That message was quickly deleted and replaced.

xxXxxKingdomOfLightxxXxx: Sick, duh. I can't miss school.

x2231x73219xxx83571: wutever man

_xxXxxKingdomOfLightxxXxx had signed off_

So Tidus is allowed to act like school is a waste of time, but I have to be penalized for my opinion? Sora fumed.

Sora was sick of the computer by then and he shut the device off. He glanced at his alarm clock, it was almost noon.

Stretching and yawning simultaneously, Sora stood up and wandered back down to the lower floor of his house, this time entering the kitchen. There was a pale yellow counter that boxed off the left side of the room, which included the sink, the dishwasher, the refrigerator, the oven, the stove, the microwave, and the toaster. Cabinets lined the top of that section. On the right side was a rectangular wooden table with four weave chairs situated on each side. There was a sliding glass door behind that, peeking out to a sunny day. A garbage can was located to the left of the door. A bowl of fruit stood on the middle of the table.

Sora shuffled over to the food, his socks causing him to slip a couple of times on the tiled floor. He chose an apple with a vibrant red color and bit down. Sticky juice dribbled down his chin, some of it landing in his shirt. He only remembered he had forgotten to wash the apple off after he had taken three more bites, yet he scampered over to the sink and rinsed what he could off of the exterior of the piece of fruit. He finished devouring the apple over the sink and tossed the core in the garbage can.

Still hungry, the boy began to raid through the cabinets above him. The first one contained nothing more than dishes, glasses, and mugs. The next cabinet's contents entranced Sora more. The bottom shelf held some boxes of cereal lined up in a neat row. On the shelf above the cereal there were some spices, and above that was medicine and vitamins. Sora reached for the Cheerios box, removed the back from within and shoved pieces in his mouth as if he was eating popcorn.

Content with the Cheerios, Sora munched on them until he felt he had satisfied his hunger. He returned the cereal and brushed off the crumbs that had fell on his shirt.

Sora began to feel uncomfortable because of the juice from the apple sticking to his skin, so it was back up the stairs and into the shower for him. He turned the water to a warm temperature and stepped into the flow of water. It pattered against his shoulders and back, releasing the tension that had been gathering there.

After several minutes under the relaxing spray, Sora's mind began to wander. He thought of Roxas and how much less of an emo he had turned out to be. Then he thought about Riku, sitting at home and hacking his throat off, wishing he had someone better than Tidus to talk to. Then he imagined Tidus being scolded by his parents when they received the call informing them that their son had been absent all day. Then he imagined Wakka walking along the beach, holding hands with some cute girl in a bikini, both of them blushing and shyly looking away from each other, but secretly stealing glances when the other was distracted.

Inevitably, it all led to Kairi, her sweet laugh, her entrancing eyes, her plump lips. What would it feel like to kiss them? Sora asked himself. Then he thought back to injuring Kairi and felt guilt well up in his stomach, the urge to apologize further growing inside him.

Sora hopped out of the shower and pulled on the same clothes he'd been wearing earlier. On the way out of his house he picked up his keys and some money and then headed over to town.

It was a short walk over to the flower shop, and Sora now appreciated that very much. A bell clanged when he entered the building and short, thin woman rushed over to greet him. She was wearing a pink dress decorated with little white flowers that came down to just below her knees. Her thick brown hair had been pulled back into a bun at the top of her head. She smiled graciously and asked if she could help him.

"Yeah, I'd like to make a bouquet," he replied.

The tiny woman led him over to a section where flowers were stored behind a glass door. They came in all sorts of sizes and colors. Sora's attention was immediately drawn to the red roses, but he forced himself to search through the entire collection. Towards the bottom were some tiny white flowers. In another container were some larger ones dyed bright purple and pink. Yellow daffodils rested in yet another cup.

What was Kairi's favorite color again? he speculated. He soon remembered it was green, which didn't help him at all.

Eventually he mixed some of the tiny white flowers with some yellow roses and was granted the use of the shop owner's pen in order to scribble down an apology note. Sora thanked her and left, pleased with his accomplishment of creating a gift for Kairi.

The only decision left was whether to deliver the flowers directly to her or leave them at her house. Sora tried his best to will up the courage to face his friend in person, but was defeated by his fear. He instead left the flowers with her mother, pretending that PS15 had a half-day that day when she asked him for the reason he was free to drop by their house before school was out.

Sora then walked back to his house, taking over his previous position on the couch.

Everyone has at least one person who likes them, huh, he thought.

---

Oh, and by the way, I suck at updating. T.T Well, hopefully you enjoyed this chapter. Really _really _enjoyed it because I was a real jerk for not writing it sooner.

The good news is, now everyone should know who pillow-girl is, yes?


	4. Chapter 4

Sora scraped his straw across the bottom of his soda, gathering up the last bits of fluid he could find. The shabby diner he had decided to spend his precious Friday afternoon in was empty that day, excluding a quiet couple a few tables away and a tall, professional-looking man in a business suit near the back. Despite the hushed chatter of the other duo, the uncomfortable small talk shared between Sora and Riku bounced off the walls and hung above them like dead air. The older boy had reasoned that because it was Friday he could afford to finish up his homework over the weekend in exchange for the rare occurrence of meeting up with his old friend. Sora had considered it a rare occasion as well for it was the first time someone else had invited him out in quite some time. Usually he was the one who had to beg his friends to spend time with him.

Riku brushed some silver strands of hair out of his eyes, his soda untouched. As the last of the slurping died down, he pushed the unwanted drink forwards, watching Sora attack it without batting an eye.

"It's been a long time, huh..." Riku muttered, drumming his fingers on the table out of anxiety. There was a science test on Tuesday and a French quiz on Friday, less than what Riku was used to, but still nerve-wracking to him. There were times when he wished he had applied for a less advanced school, but he could never regret the decision to follow the redhead of both his and Sora's dreams wherever she went. Kairi had motivation, determination, but, unfortunately, expected the same from everyone around her, Riku thought as he offered an unnoticed pitiful stare to the boy across from him. Despite his own tremendous amount of stress, no thanks to his AP classes, he believed Sora must have had more. Riku unconsciously expected everyone to be concerned with their careers, which was why he felt so terrible for Sora, but was still unwilling to admit it to him that his academic future was screwed.

Sora temporarily looked up from the Coke he had been so engrossed in. "What d'you mean?" He swirled the straw in tiny circles, swishing the ice around, grimacing slightly. The soda didn't taste as sweet as it used to. There was overwhelming tension present between him and Riku, pressing down upon him and making the air feel thick and uncomfortable. Sora felt as if he would soon choke on the atmosphere.

"Since we hung out and stuff. You've been kind of disconnected lately, kind of far off and stuff."

Sora clenched his lips tightly and twirled his straw in a vigorous manner and refrained from replying with something rude. Although he disliked the fact that he felt obliged to edit out his true feelings and put in the words that would please Riku, he drawled out a, "So? Is that all you wanted to tell me?" It was still obnoxious, Sora noted, and it caused a sick pleasure to bubble up in his stomach as Riku faltered due to the cold tone.

That Friday had not been a good day for Sora. In the morning, he received a text message from Kairi asking him not to contact her any longer. His "early dismissal" from school the day before had not satisfied his sudden yet immense hatred of his school, so he stomped down the stairs in his pajamas and turned on the television to some loud and annoying children's show. His mother was enraged, for she had been attempting to finish a book she had been aiming to read for some time and scolded him so harshly he changed his mind about school, stomping right back upstairs, pulling clothes on, and running out of the house. There weren't many places he could inconspicuously hang out in (Sora cursed the people in his neighborhood for being so attentive), so he grumpily trudged his way to the building he had been avoiding since yesterday. It was just his luck that on that one Friday out of the entire school year, his teacher felt like giving out lunch detention when he walked into second period five minutes late. The most frustrating part of his punishment was that a group of girls strolled in the same class ten minutes later, yet the teacher ignored their tardiness. Roxas refused to speak to him for the whole day because he was feeling bitter about Sora's abrupt departure the day before. After apologizing for the tenth time, Sora classified their friendship as a lost cause and slipped a terrible, nasty note in his locker to get him back. He stood in the same place for several minutes, snickering to himself, before he realized that he felt horrible about his actions, but had no way of removing the letter now that it had slipped through the slim grating on the top of the locker. He turned away, remorsefully glancing back at his friend's locker, and hoped that Roxas would ignore the note.

"So," Riku continued nevertheless, "So, so, so... so, talk to me!" He punctuated the sentence by slamming both his hands on the edge of the table, which Sora reacted to by knocking over his soda. Sora quickly restored it to an upright position and pulled out some napkins out of the dispenser in between a partially used bottle of ketchup and a salt and pepper shaker.

"Ah... sorry," Riku muttered in a truly apologetic tone. Sora pulled another couple of napkins out as he discovered that the amount he started with wasn't quite enough. There was a moment of silence while Sora finished up his job and Riku stared intently at their waitress, who was currently setting down two plates of spaghetti for a the couple, his cheeks bright red with embarrassment.

"Aren't you mad?" Sora finally inquired in an exasperated tone.

"Mad? Why would I be mad?" Riku grew concerned as Sora heaved a hefty sigh.

"I guess she didn't... well whatever..." the other boy murmured dejectedly. The two friends shared another minute of awkward silence as Riku contemplated whether or not to question Sora further.

"She? Who did-"

"What am I to you?" Sora cut him off abruptly, gave a quick glance at his partner's eyes, and then returned to slurping his soda.

"What's that sup-"

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Sora interrupted again. "I bet you do." A nasty glare was sent in Riku's direction. Sora could feel the hatred building up inside him, his guilt from Roxas and Kairi, his anger at Riku, Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie, his loneliness—all of it mixing into one monster he was about to unleash onto Riku. "You should at least come out and say it if you do. Don't keep it all hidden. I'm not a little kid, I don't need you guys to shield me from the truth."

"Huh?" Riku gawked up at Sora with wide, shocked eyes.

"Huh? Don't give me 'huh.' I'm not as stupid as you think!" Sora rose to his feet in passion, ignoring the stares of the rest of the customers as the volume of his voice steadily grew. "Just because you're in a better school doesn't mean you can judge me! Just watch me! I'll get into college! I'll get into a better college than any of your lame asses will!"

Riku sunk down into the squishy texture of the bench he was perched on, tempted to hide himself under the table or find some other way to shield himself from Sora's expulsion of frustration. Thankfully, the waitress mustered up the courage to approach Sora and requested for him to either quiet down or leave, as he was disturbing the other customers. The boy shot a glare in her direction, regaining his composure and sliding into his seat. Eventually the chatter of the other couple started up again.

"Um..." Riku began, searching for something to help calm his friend down.

"Just... forget what I said. And don't talk to me anymore if you don't want to, alright? You don't have to hang out with me if you don't want to." Sora pulled out his wallet and fumbled through it until he pulled out some bills. He set the money on the table, far away from where the soda had spilled earlier. "This should cover it."

"Sora, what made you-"

"I never liked sea salt ice cream anyway!" Sora hissed in a hostile tone before he darted away from Riku and exited the restaurant.

Riku stood up and hesitatingly began to follow, but gave up after he made it two steps away from the table. He had attracted the customers' attention once more and upon seeing their bemused faces sat right back down and began to ponder his friend's odd behavior.

---

Naruto dies. D:

Er... I'm sorry I haven't updated over half a year? Oh God, there's no real excuse. I just... I dunno. I'm so sorry! -sobs- And the worst part is: where are the funnies in this chappy? It's like cereal without milk! Waaaaah! -kills Goofy out of anguish-

But anyway, I can't really promise an update soon or anything. But I'll try to make it shorter than... nine months... o.o (Have I really not updated in that long?)

In other news, where's my plot?


	5. Chapter 5

Sora woke up the next morning feeling dead and empty. There was no rush of joy that usually came over the weekend. In fact, all Sora felt like doing was laying around and staring at the ceiling. It was as if invisible chains were holding his body to the mattress.

He went to sleep fairly early the night before, but his limbs felt heavy and his eyes sore. The boy tried closing his eyes, cocooning himself in his blanket, and returning to sleep, but as soon as he got into a comfortable position, his body began to feel twitchy and awake. He suffered through a few minutes of drumming his fingers on his arm, shifting his legs every couple of seconds, and going through the process of removing his shirt and then putting it back on five times before he gave up hope on sleeping and grumpily arose from bed.

Sora's clothes were sweaty and wrinkled, yet he couldn't be bothered enough to take them off. Grease coated his skin and his head felt clouded and hazy. Normally, these problems would be solved with a shower, but it just seemed like it would take too much energy, so Sora dragged himself down the stairs and treated himself to a pitiful breakfast of frozen waffles and a chunk of Swiss cheese. He trudged his way over to living room and plopped himself onto the couch, which crinkled in protest, retrieving the remote from between two cushions. He pressed the power button and settled for watching some poorly animated cartoon on demand.

Sora gave a hollow chuckle here and there, barely processing the jokes. Shortly after he found a channel that was playing reruns of old Spongebob Squarepants episodes, a delicate series of footsteps alerted him that his mother was coming downstairs.

Sora's mother had a very distinctive way of walking. She was a small person, so it was natural that her footsteps would be on the quiet side, but they had progressed from the point of being soft to being nearly undetectable. Sora had a suspicion that she purposely mastered masking her footsteps in order to sneak up on him when he least expected it. On good days, when he was able to strain his ears enough to notice the pitter patter of his mother's feet, he would usually attempt to sneak into another room and wait there until she took a shower. Then, he would make his way back into the haven of his room and not have to deal with her lectures. Today he was in no mood for lectures, as usual, but couldn't muster up the motivation or energy to play hide and seek, so he continued to watch his cartoons.

"Sora, are you watching senseless TV shows again?" And so began the interrogation.

"Hm," came Sora's insightful reply.

The soft tapping sounds came closer as his mother made her way around the couch and to the front of the television, blocking Sora's view. Despite being a mere five feet in height, when his mother stood in front of him with a stern expression and crossed arms, Sora was frightened. Shivers crawled down his spine as she furiously grabbed the remote and jabbed at the power button.

"Have you done your homework, young man?" she seethed.

Seeing the anger radiating off his mother's body did tempt Sora to lie. But for some reason he felt too lazy to come up with some bogus excuse today, so he tried out honesty for a change.

"I'll do it tomorrow."

Sora spotted a vein on his mother's forehead twitch dangerously.

"I mean I'll do it later today."

The twitching continued.

"I mean I...uh..."

And then came the explosion.

"Do you have any idea how much I work for you, Sora?" His mother began to pace angrily back and forth, eying her son with acrimony. "And what do you do with all this time I grant you? You sit around like a dirty, rotten bum! Why don't you see any of your friends once in a while? Why don't you _do _something?"

She continued on with her criticism of Sora's weekend activities as her child tried to surreptitiously slip away. Unfortunately, it seemed the couch was determined to prevent his escape as it let out a moan of despair, alerting Sora's mother of his plan. The boy cowered in the crinkly surface of the couch, mentally preparing himself for a harsh rebuke. She opened her mouth, ready to continue the censure, and Sora's intelligence decided to take a vacation.

In a moment of idiotic desperation, Sora shoved his mother out of the way and dashed out of the house. He seemed to be running away from a lot of people lately, Sora noted, thinking back to the day he had ditched Roxas. He really needed to learn how to control his "fight of flight" reflex.

Despite the strange looks people shot him for running through the streets in sweaty and stained shirt, no shoes, and hair that made it seem as if his brain had just exploded, Sora found his feet wouldn't stop moving until he crashed into a stop sign, which slowed him down considerably.

As a numb feeling spread throughout his nose, Sora gingerly touched his fingers to it, picking up some sticky red liquid trickling down his face. He sighed heftily, making no attempt to stop the blood from dribbling across his lips and chin and then dripping slowly onto his shirt. A salty taste met his tongue as he licked at his lips curiously. It wasn't metallic like the authors of books described. Just salty. And a little nauseating.

Sora sniffed a bit, feeling even more queasy as he experienced the sensation of the blood going back into his nostrils, only to rush back out with an even greater intensity then before.

"Sora?"

The high-pitched voice sounded concerned, disgusted and shocked. As Sora spun his head around, he met eyes with a short redhead in a pink dress. His cheeks heated up with embarrassment and resentment, feeling like he wanted to kiss her and scream at her simultaneously.

"Ug," Sora managed, moving towards her and then proceeding to vomit on Kairi's feet before he collapsed.

---

Yay, I beat my goal of nine months! :D 'dances victoriously' School's been killing me. e.e I guess I probably don't have to tell anyone who's following this story that the next update will probably be nowhere in the near future, but I thank anyone who has put up with my crappy updating/crappy excuses for not updating/obvious lack of plot or any sort of storyline. But I actually think I might be working something out, _maybe_.

So yeah, this chapter kind of sucked, but Sora was just so freaking emo ('cuz I wrote that part a while ago when I was feeling down), I wanted to hit him. So I made a stop sign do my dirty work, even though Sora's actions made absolutely no sense. Remember, fighting isn't the answer. Violence is. :D It's all funny until someone gets hurt. Then it's hilarious. But I digress...

The main point of this rambling is to ask my lovable readers this—**Will any of you chop off my limbs if I put in some RoxasxNamine? **Because I was originally planning on asking you guys if you preferred Akuroku or RoxasxNamine, but then I realized it was really leaning towards RoxasxNamine, so yeah... I mean, Akuroku's good and all, but I don't think it fits here. o3o

So yeah. That's it. Sorry for the lengthy authors note and the short chapter. Hopefully I'll get my plot in line sooner or later. :D

Mmk, yeah bye. o3o


	6. Chapter 6

To think that just a few days ago, Sora had truly believed he would never see the pearly white kitchen he was currently sitting in ever again. He shifted in his wooden seat as the love of his life eyed him warily. Of course Kairi had showered as soon as they reached her house, but Sora could still smell faint traces of his breakfast on her.

Bright, unfiltered light shined through the skylight directly into Sora's eyes, causing them to water a little. That same blinding effulgence seemed to be magnified as it bounced off each and every surface of the shockingly white room. The table, chairs, cabinets, counters, and even the tea kettle were all that same harsh, eye-dissolving white color.

Sora never liked Kairi's kitchen, although he thought every other room of the house was breathtaking. Kairi was, to put it bluntly, insanely rich, and the colossal mansion she inhabited reflect only a small portion of her wealth. She was the kind of person who could have anything she wanted, yet managed to remain level-headed and responsible. Sora respected her a lot, knowing that he would probably become a spoiled brat in her position.

He felt tempted to ask to switch rooms, maybe to her living room where they could lie on her impossibly comfortable couch watching movies on the monstrous flat-screen TV that could compete with screens in movie theaters for size. Or they could head up to her room and cuddle with her gigantic stuffed catfish Riku had won for her at a fair several years ago. (Well, Sora would get to curl up into the fish. Kairi would dig up the pathetic octopus key chain Sora received out of pity from the same game and pretend it was just as special to make him feel a little less incompetent.) They could even go down to the basement and play video games until Kairi's mom announced that she was serving dinner, and only at that time would they realize how long they had been together. (Time flies when you're having fun, one of them would joke, and then Sora would be permitted to join them for one of the delectable dinners Kairi's mom was so talented at creating.)

He was tempted to suggest one of these options, but as he continued to stare blankly into Kairi's worn out expression, he decided to drop the idea and shyly dropped his gaze down to the tea Kairi's mother had brewed earlier.

"So, um, ginger tea, right?" Sora questioned although he honestly couldn't care less about what tea he was drinking.

"It cures nausea," came the reply.

Sensing the bitter tone in her voice, Sora blushed and began to drink the tea quickly, as if the noisy slurping would break them out of their awkward silence. He chugged down the rest of his drink and then slammed the mug down on the table while he proceeded to experience an onslaught of coughs.

"Sora."

After he calmed down from his episode, Sora looked up to meet Kairi's enigmatic gaze.

"Kairi, I—I don't know what to say to you," he began, feeling a rush of apologies building up in the back of his throat. "Just, I'm sorry. I've been such a jerk. And I—I just threw up on you and made you drag me back to your house on what should have been your day off! I'm terrible. And I _hurt _you. But you still treat me so nicely." He could feel a lump forming in his mouth, but he wasn't sure if it was a signal that he was about to cry or round two of covering Kairi with his guts. "What have I done? You've always been so kind to me, and then you're busy for a second, and I just turn my back on you, and... and... and..."

Unfortunately, it was the latter, Sora discovered, as he found himself emptying his stomach just as he stood up to make his declarations more flashy. This meant that Sora was at the perfect angle to spill all of his insides onto the lap of his childhood friend for a second time in the same day. He found himself on his hands and knees soon after, retching towards the once pure white floor.

A small hand made its way to his back and began to rub soothing circles near his shoulders. Apparently this was the "off-switch" of vomiting, for as the hand began to move, Sora let out a final few hacks and then pulled himself into an upright sitting position, panting lightly.

For a moment, he was content to stay like that, unfocused eyes staring raptly up towards the skylight as the tiny hand danced around his back. But then he remembered where he was and who he was with and suddenly turned around to face his dear friend. In the split-second it took to whip his head around, Sora was able to come up with at least fifteen different horrible scenarios for Kairi's reaction, all of which involved her doing ghastly things to his computer after shooting him a dirty, disgusted look.

Well, she was disgusted, to say the least. The lovely green eyes Sora admired so much were scrunched up and twitching, while the lips he so often fantasized about were drawn into a tight, thin line. Her face was pale and her right hand was latched onto her nose. In that very moment, as Kairi fixed her eyes on the wall, looking as if she wanted to vomit herself, Sora felt himself falling in love with her all over again. Even though he had just ruined two of Kairi's dresses with his own stomach acid and made a complete mess out of part of her kitchen, she simply grit her teeth and attempted to comfort him.

"Kairi! Kairi... I..."

He didn't know what to say. There were so many things to say all of a sudden. He wanted to apologize and confess and reminisce over their friendship and felt that all of that wouldn't be nearly as passionate and diverse as the emotions coursing through his body.

"Sora, shh. I have something to say," she commented calmly. Seeing her in such a controlled state dried up some of the raw excitement that had been fueling his deluge of feelings.

"I want..." She paused to open her mouth and lunge forward slightly, as if she was going to carry out vengeance for her two soiled outfits of the day. "Sorry; smell got to me... Anyway, I want to apologize. _That time_... it was wrong of me to say that."

The delicate hand was removed from his back and flew to her lips as she struggled against the urge to gag. Sora tried to counter her statement with forgiveness, tried to apologize for his own misconduct, but when he opened his mouth to speak, Kairi shook her head violently.

"Wa... wait... wait. I'm not done," she squeezed out.

"Okay," she began after she overcame the stench in the room. "Okay. Look, Sora, I have my own issues with judging people. And I do admit that I am upset with the level of education you have subjected yourself to, but more than that, I'm upset because you've been so distant. I mean, I'm worried, Sora. We used to spend time together, you, me, and Riku, _every Saturday_, but now I never see you. We're all worried, Sora. Me, Riku, Selphie, Wakka, even _Tidus_ has picked up that something's wrong."

"Kairi, I—" She interrupted him by holding up a finger on her left hand while her right hand took its place over her mouth and nose.

"Not... not done yet..." she muttered.

Sora waited a little longer as Kairi pulled herself together.

"Okay... okay... I think I can talk again... okay... sorry; I just can't stand the smell of it... okay, okay..." She nodded quickly, as if she was approving the next sentence her brain offered for her to say. "The most important thing is, we want to help you, Sora. We just want you to be happy. It hurts us to see you suffer like this, but it's even worse knowing that we're not helping you."

"Kairi!" She held up her hand again, but he smacked it away. "Kairi, I've been holding this in for the past eleven years! I'm really happy that you're concerned about me—well, I mean that I'm happy you care, not that you're worried—but that's not the point! Kairi, I love you!"

A shriek echoed through the room and Sora vomited for the third time that day.

xXx

With all the blood and vomit, I feel like this fanfic is turning into an episode of South Park. x)

So: good news and bad news. The good news is that I updated in like a week, which is absolutely amazing for someone as lazy as me. The bad news is that this is yet another short chapter (as you can see) and I also have no idea what I am doing with the plot. Ah well. It'll work out in the end. Hopefully...


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